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West to Far Michigan: Settling the Lower Peninsula, 1815-1860

Kenneth E. Lewis

West to Far Michigan is a study of the lower peninsula's occupation by
agriculturalists, whose presence forever transformed the land and helped to
create the modern state of Michigan. This is not simply a history of Michigan,
but rather a work that focuses on why the state developed as it did. Although
Michigan is seen today as an industrial state whose history is couched in terms
of the fur trade and the international rivalry for the Great Lakes, agricultural
settlement shaped its expansion. Using a model of agricultural colonization
derived from comparative studies, Lewis examines the settlement process in
Michigan between 1815 and 1860. This period marked the opening of Michigan
to immigrants, saw the rise of commercial agriculture, and witnessed
Michigan's integration into the larger national economy.

Employing numerous primary sources, West to Far Michigan traces changes
and patterns of settlement crucial to documenting the large-scale development
of southern Michigan as a region. Diaries, letters, memoirs, gazetteers, and
legal documents serve to transform the more abstract elements of economic
and social change into more human terms. Through the experiences of the
early Agriculturists process, we can gain insight into how their triumphs played
out in communities within the region to produce small-scale elements that
comprise the fabric of the larger cultural landscape.

500 pages, 7 x 10, Hardbound
ISBN 0-87013-551-1, $64.95
Notes, Index, Maps, Illustrations, Bibliography
January, 2002

Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713-1758

A. J. B. Johnston

Control and Order in French Colonial Louisbourg, 1713-1758 is
the culmination of nearly a quarter century of research and writing
on 18th-century Louisbourg by A. J. B. Johnston. The author uses
a multitude of primary archival sources-official correspondence,
court records, parish registries, military records, and hundreds of
maps and plans-to put together a detailed analysis of a distinctive
colonial society. Located on Cape Breton Island (then known as Île
Royale), the seaport and stronghold of Louisbourg emerged as
one of the most populous and important settlements in all of New
France. Its economy was based on fishing and trade, and the
society that developed there had little or nothing to do with the fur
trade, or the seigneurial regime that characterized the Canadian
interior. Johnston traces the evolution of a broad range of
controlling measures that were introduced and adapted to achieve
an ordered civil and military society at Louisbourg. Town planning,
public celebrations, diversity in the population, use of punishments,
excessive alcohol consumption, the criminal justice system, and
sexual abuse are some of the windows that reveal attempts to
control and regulate society. A. J. B. Johnston's Control and
Order in French Colonial Louisbourg offers both a broad overview
of the colony's evolution across its half-century of existence, and
insightful analyses of the ways in which control was integrated into
the mechanisms of everyday life.

ISBN: 0-87013-570-8
Price: $54.95

African Americans in Michigan

Lewis Walker, Benjamin C. Wilson, and Linwood Cousins

African Americans, as free laborers and as slaves, were among the earliest
permanent residents of Michigan, settling among the French, British, and
Native people with whom they worked and farmed. Lewis Walker and
Benjamin Wilson recount the long history of African American communities in
Michigan, delineating their change over time, as migrants from the South,
East, and overseas made their homes in the state. Moreover, the authors
show how Michigan's development is inextricably joined with the vitality and
strength of its African American residents. In a related chapter, Linwood
Cousins examines youth culture and identity in African American schools,
linking education with historical and contemporary issues of economics,
racism, and power.

Lewis Walker is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Western Michigan University. He is author of Social Change,
Conflict, and Education and co-author of Ethnic Dynamics.

Benjamin C. Wilson is Professor of Black Americana Studies at Western Michigan University and author of The
Rural Black Heritage Between Chicago and Detroit, 1850-1929.

63 pages, 5 * x 8 *
Paper, 0-87013-583-x,
$9.95 June 2001

American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture

Edited by Jules Prown and Kenneth Haltman

In the distinguished, now decades-long history of Material Culture
Studies, American Artifacts represents the first methodologically-unified
compilation of interpretive essays to treat a wide range of ordinary
objects such as a teapot, card table, cigarette lighter, cellarette,
telephone, quilt, money box, corset, parlor stove, lava lamp, footbridge,
locket, food mill, and Argand lamp. The volume, as a result, should prove
of interest not just to cultural historians and to historians of art (who will
find it a refreshingly enjoyable as well as eminently teachable) but to a
non-academic audience alike including collectors – in short, to all those
curious about meaning that lies hidden in things. The volume’s several
introductions, featuring an illuminating essay by co-editor Jules Prown,
Paul Mellon Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University,
serve to situate its contributions historically while offering instructional
assignments that alone should make the text indispensable as a
pedagogic tool for years to come.

368 pages, 6 x 9
Paper, 0-87013-524-4, $32.95 Available
August, 2000

August 4, 2001